The History of the World in 12 Soccer Matches: Players become spectators of the social upheavals surrounding them

Former AC Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi described the biggest sport on the planet as “the most important of the least important things”, which nicely encapsulates the spirit of the games collected by Stefano Bizzotto.

Seeking to match the ambition of the book’s title, Bizzotto places his players on the heavy pitch of history; they became spectators, too, of the social upheavals surrounding them, or viewing their country’s past replayed in a theatre of war that’s 22 blokes kicking a ball around a field.

If you love this game invented in the 19th century, that most revolutionary age of the springtime of the peoples, then 12 Matches proves an illuminating read.

Journalist Bizzotto replays the matches in the light conversational manner found on any podcast; it’s easy to tell he lives for Calcio.

Some of the games featured will be familiar: the football match that broke out during a Christmas ceasefire in the first World War (initiated by the lower ranks; the generals had no idea); or when the weight of the second World War created a beautiful distortion in the Dutch team when the opportunity for “revenge” arose against West Germany in 1974’s World Cup final.

Bizzotto adds emotional heft to these tales previously told with judicious selections of archival writings and interviews. In fact he made this reader choke over a story known by heart, the Superga tragedy in 1949 which wiped out Il Grande Torino (nota bene, an estimated 600,000 Italians turned out for the funerals).

Other chapters leave you wanting more; the game that symbolised the collapse of Yugoslavia could easily fill a book, with Bizzotto speaking to that prince among players Zvonimir Boban, an all-time hero. New heroes are discovered here as well: Austria’s Matthias Sindelar, known as “der Papierere”, the paper man, for his floating skills and physical frailty, showed he had no feet of clay in defying the Nazis in his own courageous way.

I would have been happy if 12 Matches had been twice as long, in revisiting moments like “the saddest goal” between the Soviet Union and a Chile team and country that was in a state of shock following Pinochet’s coup against the democratic socialist government of Allende. To borrow from the great Brazilian No8 Socrates: give my goals to a better country.

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